It's one of life's more infuriating facts that things we do when we are too young to do things wisely affect us well into our old age. Tommy Jack, the protagonist of Eric Gansworth's "Extra Indians," is one of the thousands of men who went to Vietnam when they were little more than children. There, he witnessed horrific violence, lost his high school sweetheart, found a best friend and fell in love. It's the violence, however, that lasts, infecting his friendships and love for the rest of his life.

Gansworth's novel covers many things -- Vietnam, Native American identity, American life from reality TV to academia -- but it's the effect of this violence on one decent man's life that is the real subject of this sad, stirring book.

Jack, the truck-driving, antique-collecting main character, is at once a simple and complex man. He's never forgiven his wife for first marrying another man when they were both 19 -- it's come between them for 35 years. Likewise, he walked away from his true love at age 22 and, while yearning, has never repaired the situation. He loves his adopted son, but when a bitter fight breaks out, he doesn't have the energy to defend him. He's quiet and cynical, yet when we meet him he is driving from Texas to Minnesota to witness a meteor shower -- not to ponder the cold, immutable beauty of the universe, but to wish upon a falling star. World-weary, he still yearns for something specific to happen, or perhaps more to the point, to not have happened.

One of these might be the death of his best friend, Fred Howkowski. Howkowski had gone out West, looking for a career as an actor. A Native American from the New York Onondoga nation, he found himself looking for work as an extra. The work, along with the memories of Vietnam, kill first his spirit, then his body. Gansworth skillfully navigates between the two stories and threads them together with elan.

Howkowski's son, whom Jack adopted, and the daughter of the woman Jack loved both come looking for him. These two have grown into academics -- what writer Heid Erdrich once called members of "the Conference Tribe" -- and the daughter is on the trail of Howkowski as a thesis subject. As these two young people drive down to Texas, other storms approach, as well.

Gansworth's novel has a ballad-like quality; its tone is rueful, like a smartened-up folk song. There are softly satiric takes on reality TV, academia and modern life in general, but it all stops short of whimsy.

Tommy Jack is a well crafted literary creation; he's touching, but far from flawless. By book's end, the reader will realize he has been in the company of a genuine, three-dimensional human being, and that experience lasts longer than myth or movies -- like a star that doesn't fall.

Emily Carter is the author of "Glory Goes and Gets Some." A longtime Minnesotan, she now lives in Connecticut.